Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Ted Poor: You Already Know

Ted Poor: You Already Know

By Chris May
March 23, 2020
View read count

Breaking news 3/23/20: Impulse! is getting its mojo back. Showing definite signs of, anyway...

Since its glory days in the 1960s and 1970s, Impulse! has been little more than a logo wheeled out by its parent company, Universal Music, to lend credibility to unrelated one-off projects. Until very recently, the only newly recorded release worthy of Impulse!'s imprimatur was

Alice Coltrane

piano
1937 - 2007

" data-original-title="" title="">Alice Coltrane's swansong, Translinear Light, in 2004.

Fast forward to 2018: A new dawn for the label was hinted at with the release of British reed player

Shabaka Hutchings

woodwinds

" data-original-title="" title="">Shabaka Hutchings'

Sons of Kemet

band / ensemble / orchestra

" data-original-title="" title="">Sons of Kemet's Your Queen Is A Reptile, an album-of-the-year on both sides of the Atlantic. The rising light was confirmed a year later by the release two extraordinary albums by another of Hutchings' bands,

The Comet Is Coming

band / ensemble / orchestra

" data-original-title="" title="">The Comet Is Coming, and it was signed, sealed and delivered with We Are Sent Here By History, a revelatory masterpiece by

Shabaka & the Ancestors

" data-original-title="" title="">Shabaka & the Ancestors , released in March 2020. Hutchings is among the most exciting musicians in modern jazz and simply having him on board takes Impulse! back to the cutting edge where it belongs.

American drummer

Ted Poor

drums

" data-original-title="" title="">Ted Poor's You Already Know shores up the label's revival. Poor was frequently recorded during the 2010s, often with bands led by

Ben Monder

guitar
b.1962

" data-original-title="" title="">Ben Monder and

Cuong Vu

trumpet
b.1969

" data-original-title="" title="">Cuong Vu, but the 2020 release of You Already Know marks his first own-name project since 2003's All Around (Trier). Notwithstanding a little of what they used to disparagingly call "sweetening" from a small strings section, the new album is a duo outing with alto saxophonist

Andrew D'Angelo

saxophone, alto

" data-original-title="" title="">Andrew D'Angelo, who shares the composing and arranging credits.

Each of the nine tracks, which clock in at an average four-and-a-bit minutes apiece, plays with a rhythmic motif and a melodic one. Some tracks are upbeat and urgent, others are more reflective, but they are all cut from the same cloth. You Already Know is the sort of album which gives minimalist jazz a good name.

The aforementioned sweetening was added by Poor's co-producer, guitarist

Blake Mills

guitar and vocals
b.1986

" data-original-title="" title="">Blake Mills. Mills plays a little guitar, acoustic bass, piano and harmonium on the album, and two acoustic bassists and two violinists are also on call. Poor and Mills kept the orchestrations low-profile, letting saxophone and drums retain the spotlight and using the other instruments only to add understated washes and punctuation marks.

You Already Know is, by the by, the second outstanding drummer-led release of 2020, the other being

Gard Nilssen

drums
b.1983

" data-original-title="" title="">Gard Nilssen's If You Listen Carefully The Music Is Yours (Odin), made with Nilssen's barely tamed 16-piece Scandinavian monster, the Supersonic Orchestra. Poor's album is the flip side of that remarkable release. It has its own sorts of grandeur and abandon, the qualities which define Nilssen's album, but its instrumentation encourages it to be more intimate. Also like Nilssen's outing, Poor's album has accessible, danceable motor rhythms.

2020 is Impulse!'s 60th anniversary. Hopefully the event will not only trigger another reissue program (welcome though such an exercise will always be). The signings of Hutchings and Poor merit releases from new names worthy of keeping them both company.

Learn more about our star rating system

Track Listing

Emilia; Only You; Kasia; To Rome; New Wonder; At Night; United; Push Pull; Reminder.

Personnel

Ted Poor

drums

Andrew D'Angelo

saxophone, alto

Blake Mills

guitar and vocals

Sebastian Steinberg

bass, acoustic

Paul Kowert

bass, acoustic

Andrew Bird

violin

Rob Moose

violin

Album information

Title: You Already Know | Year Released: 2020 | Record Label: Impulse! Records

PREVIOUS / NEXT

A Jazz Immuno-Booster: Part 1
< Previous

The Women Who Raised Me
Next >

Support All About Jazz

All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.